There are several highlights and spectacles worth waiting for, this month, which are expected to give a better sense of the dynamic and the ever changing solar system. Most of the stars that lighted the sky in January are slowly fading away, but others are also coming up and expected to light the skies all month long.
While Comet, Lovejoy is slowly fading away, Venus and Mars are slowly appearing and set to be part of the sky all month long. Venus is to be spotted loitering in the western sky after sunset in February sure to outshine everything in the night sky. The planet of love is known to orbit closer to the sun while shrouded in thick clouds mostly made of corrosive sulfuric acid that goes to hide her surface from view.
Jupiter is to be seen at its best as a slowly fading bright arcing through Perseus and Andromeda on February 6th. The planet is to rise at sunset and stay in the sky all night long. The planet began its westward motion towards the surface on Dec 9 last year, and it is to end this retrograde motion on April 8.
Something worth waiting for this month through a telescope is the appearance of mutual occultation and eclipses of Jupiter’s Galilean moons. All the four moons are to be lined in order, to the east side of Jupiter. Saturn, which is fainter than Venus on the other hand, will be rising up at around 4 a.m. this month and continue to rise an hour earlier with each passing day until it reaches its opposition on May 22.
Venus and Mercury are set to be prominent in the sky, having put a spectacle show last year, with Mercury dropping out of the evening sky, and Mars sinking lower while Venus climbs higher. Stars are also poised to put up a spectacle in the sky with Sirius Proycon and the twins stars of Castor and Pollux set to be dominant.
There will be no major meteor showers this month until April although five or six sporadic meteors associated with any comet may make an appearance each hour on clear moonless nights.